


Dean Winchester Really Needs To Make Some Gay Friends

by AreYouReady



Category: Supernatural
Genre: <-- that episode gets discussed, Angel Gender is weird too, Canonical Character Death, Dean is a babygay, Discussions of internalized homophobia, Episode: s04e17 It's a Terrible Life, Established Castiel/Dean Winchester, Established Relationship, Fluff and Humor, Humor, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Post-Canon, Post-Finale, Star Trek References, cas is no help, discussions of demon!dean, he's doing the thing where you navelgaze about how gay you were before you figured it out, if this gets jossed by 15x19 or 15x20 no it didn't, mentions of - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-12
Updated: 2020-11-12
Packaged: 2021-03-09 18:49:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,265
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27531049
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AreYouReady/pseuds/AreYouReady
Summary: “Like, I’m trying to think if I’ve had, I don’t know, crushes. If I ever had a gay thing before you came along and just didn’t notice,” Dean said.Cas suddenly looked down, and away from Dean. If Dean didn’t know better, he would swear Cas looked guilty.“What is it, Cas?”“You have had several… gay things before.” Cas still wouldn’t look at him.“What? When? How come you know this better than I do?”There was no way the answer to this question wasn’t funny as hell.
Relationships: (discussed) - Relationship, (past), Benny Lafitte/Dean Winchester, Castiel/Dean Winchester, Crowley (Supernatural)/Dean Winchester
Comments: 24
Kudos: 412
Collections: The Destiel Fan Survey Favs Collection





	Dean Winchester Really Needs To Make Some Gay Friends

**Author's Note:**

> FUCK YOU ALL IM POSTING SPNFIC IN 2020. I haven't slept more than four hours at a stretch since 15x18 aired so I CANNOT proofread this, sorry!!!
> 
>   
> Takes place in a hypothetical destiel good ending after the finale. If it gets mega jossed tonight or in a week no it didn't. Warning for dieting mention I guess?

“Cas.”

“Yes, Dean?”

Dean sat up in bed. Cas didn’t sleep, but he had taken up the habit of lying curled around Dean while he slept. Watching over him. If there was one thing Cas had, it was infinite reserves of patience. It might be creepy if it wasn’t so sweet. 

Still, Dean remembered how Cas’ voice had sounded, all those times when he’d been human enough to need rest. The sleepy roughness. He was a little disappointed that he couldn’t hear it now that he could finally really appreciate it. Cas had lost most of his angel mojo - even a healing was difficult for him - but he still didn’t need to sleep or eat. He also probably wouldn’t age beyond what had already happened to his vessel during times when he was more human, which was going to be embarrassing in a couple of decades. Dean didn’t really wish Cas was human again - but he certainly wished he’d taken more advantage when he  _ had  _ been. Missed opportunities. Missed connections. That was something Dean had been pondering a lot. 

“Cas, I think I had a thing for Benny.” It took a lot to say it. Finding out his old friend was dead from some levi had hurt, a lot. The idea that they could have been more than friends - that they had, in a way, been more than friends - smarted. Something had been stolen from him that he hadn’t even known was there. Worse, it felt disrespectful, somehow. Like he was, well, objectifying Benny, which was kind of a funny thought. 

Dean had spent a long time in the past few weeks pondering things. He loved Cas. He wanted Cas. He wasn’t sure how long that had been true but it was a hell of a lot longer than the three months they’d actually been together. He knew that the thought had first occurred to him about a year ago.  _ Hey, I think I might have romantic feelings for Cas.  _ He had just thought it, while rooting around in the fridge for a midnight snack. It had just occurred to him. But the feelings themselves - those had been there for a long time. 

But that also opened up some other questions. Primarily, a fun one Dean liked to call  _ hey, have I been gay this whole time? _ The answer had been interesting. There were definitely some friendships he’d had in his life that, on reflection, felt a lot more like what he had with Cas than anything else. And Benny was on top of the list.

“Why are you telling me this?” Cas sat up. He sounded annoyed. Dean grinned. One extremely interesting fact he’d learned about Cas in the past few months was that he was possessive.  _ Extremely  _ possessive. Dean didn’t particularly mind. It was actually pretty hot.

“I dunno, I was thinking how nice it would have been to run off with him instead. Think about it. All of purgatory our kingdom, fighting our way to the top of the food chain, the scratch of Benny’s beard against my-” All the air flew out of Dean’s chest as Cas pressed him back down onto their bed, hand on the handprint. Cas’ angel mojo might be mostly gone, but he was still unnaturally strong. Which was also hot.

“Dean, do not attempt to make me jealous.” Cas looked down at him in warning.

“Alright, alright.” Dean held up his hands in defeat. He only conceded because he was about fifteen years too old to fuck again tonight, as much as it might be hot to needle Cas into doing just that. “I actually just wanted to talk, anyway.”

“About what?” Cas took his hand off Dean’s shoulder, and Dean began to rise back up on his elbow.

“I dunno. How long this whole liking men thing has been going on with me, I guess.”

Cas just did his headtilt thing. That was one problem with dating Cas. Most gay people probably had at least a partner who kind of  _ got  _ it to talk to. But it wasn’t as though Cas had ever been to an LGBT youth center or anything. Angels changed genders all the time, or rather, they changed the genders of their vessels. The one time Dean had tried to ask Cas if  _ angels  _ had genders, the conversation had just sort of confused them both. The answer to the question, as far as Dean could tell, was that the closest thing angels had to gender was  _ rank _ , and Cas was a seraph, but that also didn’t really have much to do with sex or relationships. 

“Like, I’m trying to think if I’ve had, I don’t know, crushes. If I ever had a gay thing before you came along and just didn’t notice,” Dean said.

Cas suddenly looked down, and away from Dean. If Dean didn’t know better, he would swear Cas looked guilty.

“What is it, Cas?”

“You have had several…  _ gay things _ before.” Cas still wouldn’t look at him. 

“What? When? How come you know this better than I do?” Dean was kind of amused, because there was no way the answer to this question wasn’t funny as hell, but he was mostly just baffled.

“Do you remember when Zachariah caused you to become a different version of yourself?”

“What, like, in the future?” Of course he remembered that. It had probably been one of the worst three day weekends of his life.

“No.” Cas sounded peevish for a moment. “That was simply time travel. A few months before that, Zachariah altered your memories to cause you to believe you were a man named Dean Smith.”

“Oh. Yeah, right. How the hell did I forget that. It’s been a long decade, man. More than a decade.” It still felt kinda weird to call Cas  _ man  _ even though they were dating now, but if he tried to not do it, or to replace it with  _ babe  _ or something, it felt unnatural. Cas had started calling him  _ dear  _ occasionally, which was nice, but mostly he called him Dean. And it seemed like Dean’s vocabulary wouldn’t be purged of words like  _ man  _ and  _ dude  _ for a long time.

“Indeed.” Cas blinked at him.

“So what about that? Me being Dean Smith?” He tried to remember what being Dean Smith had been like, but it felt slippery, somehow. Hard to recall.

“You were not allowed to retain all memory from the three weeks you spent as Dean Smith, only pertinent sections.” Cas was  _ super  _ not looking at him again.

“Wait. Was Dean Smith gay?” Dean didn’t understand why exactly he was excited about this idea, but he was. There was just something pleasingly entertaining about it. 

“Yes, Dean.” Cas’ words were a rather dejected sigh. 

“Then… Wait.” Dean realized a possible reason why Cas looked so guilty. “Can you give me those memories back?”

“Yes, Dean.” Cas looked as though he were about to melt into the floor. 

“Then what are you waiting for? Do it!” Dean was endlessly curious what he had done as a different person. 

“Alright.” Cas put two fingers to Dean’s forehead.

-

Dean woke up to Cas shaking him. 

“What? How long was I out?” Dean asked.

“Four minutes and fifteen seconds. It's easier to work with memories if the host is asleep.” Cas was back to sounding normal.

“Shouldn’t I have… dreamt them, or something?” Dean didn’t  _ feel  _ particularly different.

“No. I was simply uncovering them, not implanting them. You should be able to recall them now, if you try.”

“Hmm. Alright.” Dean did try. 

He thought back to being Dean Smith. It was a lot easier to remember, now. That weird slipperiness was gone. The memories were still pretty ancient history, though.

_ Wait.  _ He’d called  _ The Real Housewives of Orange County  _ a “heterosexual embarrassment.” Dean always remembered a funny line when he’d said it, and apparently that was one he’d said. He’d said it in a bar, over a club soda, because Dean Smith had been dieting at the time, apparently.  _ “Are you kidding? That show is dyke city. All those chicks would be better off fucking women.”  _ That’s what his drinking companion had said. A diminutive lesbian who he’d started chatting to at the bar, because he was mostly interested in friendly conversation that night. Was that how gay people talked to each other?

Man, Dean really needed to call Charlie and see if she could introduce him to some other gay guys, this was kind of getting humiliating.

He’d also hooked up with a man, a few days after that. Dean was embarrassed to learn that apparently, Dean Smith considered his type to be “ _ burly and salt-and-pepper. _ ” Oh God, he’d actually said to someone  _ “if he’s not at least fifteen years older I’m not hitting it.”  _ He had said that to… the bartender? When someone had sent him a drink. 

And the sex had been mediocre! Dean Smith had graded the sex thoroughly mediocre. Apparently the dude, whose name Dean couldn’t even remember (heh, Dean was amused that that was one thing the version of him that knew he was gay at twenty nine had in common with the version that thought he was straight at the same age) had been an  _ “annoying power top with shitty dirty talk. _ ” But Dean had fucked him anyway because “ _ hey, my gay death is coming up, better take it where I can get it.” _ That’s what he’d said when texting someone about it. What was a gay death?  _ Oh _ . Turning thirty. That was something he was familiar with now. What the  _ hell _ .

“So why… did they hide these memories?” They were so innocuous. Dean knew they weren’t innocuous. He had no idea how he would have handled this information at the time. It probably would have gotten lumped in with Hell trauma or something. But why would  _ angels  _ want to convince Dean he was straight.

“I advised the committee that they might be damaging to your self-image.” Cas was looking away again.

“You did what?” Dean stared at Cas in the dark of their room.

“When I raised you, I acquired intimate knowledge of your mind and soul. I was under the impression that you considered suppressing homosexual impulses both normal and the honorable thing to do. I believed that allowing you to have memories of dishonoring yourself in such a manner would be detrimental to your well-being and your role in the plan.” Cas stared at the wall. His voice was the flattest it had  _ ever  _ been.

“Detrimental to my- and then you never thought to tell me? The  _ angels  _ hid stuff inside my  _ head,  _ and you never even considered telling me after you rebelled for me like two weeks later?” Dean could feel himself getting mad. Cas could feel it too, apparently; he leaned away from Dean and got out his best defensive glare. It wasn’t as though the memories were so important, but Cas had known that Dean had angelically suppressed memories, and just hadn’t told him for twelve years or so.

“I never found an appropriate time.”

Dean was presented with a choice, then. He could do one of two things. 

The first option: he could get royally pissed off. Another god damn stupid secret from Cas, Cas fucking with his brain, Cas trying to “protect his self-image” instead of respecting enough to tell him anything-

The second option was to laugh. To be charmed by the utter and complete  _ Casness  _ of it all. Of that answer. Of the entire situation.

Dean chose the second option. He laughed for a good long time. Cas just looked at him, confused.

“What, you didn’t want me to know you didn’t have my anal virginity? Don’t worry about that, Cas, that was taken care of when I was twenty one and Lila Rake decided we should act out  _ Bend Over Boyfriend 2. _ ” He gave Cas a wink. Cas looked annoyed and affronted.

“That was not my motivati-” 

“Relax, Cas. But I do want to know if there are any other secrets like that. Ones that you’ve been keeping because you  _ never found an appropriate time _ .” Dean took Cas’ hand.

“Hmm. There are several. Now is not the appropriate time to discuss any of them, however.” Cas looked very serious. Dean raised his eyebrows, taken aback for a moment. Then he felt the laughter welling up from his chest.

“Alright then, Cas. But at least tell me this: have you  _ Requiem for Methuselah’ _ d away any more of my gay thoughts?” he looked at Cas’ uncomprehending face. “I mean, have you made me forget any of them?”

“No. However, you did have several sexual encounters with Crowley during your time as a demon. He removed your memories of those incidents because he found them humiliating. However, I believe you would also find them humiliating if I restored them.” Cas was looking straight at him. Dean choked.

“You- I- What-  _ Crowley? _ I had sex with  _ Crowley? _ Excuse me?”

“Yes, Dean.” The look on Cas’ face was best described as  _ distaste. _

“Good God. No, you were right, those can stay repressed. Yeesh.” Dean shook himself. “I need to take, like, eight showers.” He threw the covers off himself and rolled to the edge of the bed.

“You do realize that this would be completely pointless, as those incidents occurred five years ago.”

“Yeah, but I’m still doing it.” Dean grabbed his towel, and went for the door.

“I will come with you.”

“As good as that sounds, Cas, I think this is a cross I’m going to have to bear alone.  _ Crowley. _ ”


End file.
